Don't ignore role of alcohol in date rape

Police dramas and cable news documentaries may be finding TV ratings success with stories about date rape. But by no means has this translated into a broad understanding of reality. The seriousness of the matter is getting lost amid the details of social media used in the crime or the celebrity of the alleged assailants.

Disturbing, because awareness of violence against women always has been an uphill battle in America.

In the past, women and girls had to worry first about the predators and second about the possibility that people would not believe the act was not consensual. Now, there is a third worry: that their peers will not allow them the human error of misplaced trust while keeping the blame where it squarely rests, with the attacker.

This came to a head recently with the publication on Slate of an article by Emily Yoffe about the role of binge drinking on college campuses. Yoffe wrote that young women can help protect themselves by not drinking to excess and was immediately criticized for blaming the victim.

But Yoffe's point is well-taken when you consider, as a Tennessean report last weekend explained, that alcohol by itself is the No. 1 date-rape drug - not roofies and other sinister "knockout" substances that grab headlines.

And this is where the reality comes in: Acceptance of drinking at college parties has obscured the fact that heavy drinking can go beyond simple lowered inhibitions, sedating a person or rendering them incapable of rendering consent. Common sense and an individual knowing his or her limits have gotten lost in the conversation.

Studies suggest an overwhelming majority of sexual assault victims were drinking alcohol before they were assaulted.

That does not make them culpable. As Debbie Curtis, a member of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE), told The Tennessean: "People don't get raped because they have been drinking ? people get raped because there is a perpetrator there."

But the problem is far too prevalent not to discuss all critical factors. According to a study cited in Yoffe's article, almost 20 percent of college women will be victims of sexual assault by the time they are seniors, the vast majority of them by a classmate and the vast majority while they are drunk.

As The Tennessean report noted, in some ways there is better support for women who are uncertain about their options when they believe they have been assaulted. But public education languishes somewhere in the realm of a 1980s made-for-TV movie - especially when it comes to knowing the power of too much alcohol over the body and mind.

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Don't ignore role of alcohol in date rape

Police dramas and cable news documentaries may be finding TV ratings success with stories about date rape. But by no means has this translated into a broad understanding of reality.